The school year is coming to an end, meaning the athletic season is wrapping up as well. The Men’s Golf team competed in the 2010 Mac Championships this weekend.

With mediocre weather making the competition less than desirable, Bowling Green completed Sunday's 18 holes with a composite score of 314, over 26 and finished their season in ninth place… of nine teams.

Kent State University took first with their two-under-par 1150, 22 shots over Eastern Michigan. BGSU fell 10 shots behind Ball State and 13 behind Toledo, who came in seventh on Sunday.

The season had been a rollercoaster for the guys, starting off strong, ending up in the top- five tournament standings and then coming in last place of the tournament. Four seniors will be leaving the team.

Senior Matt Schneider topped off his career with a two-over-par 74 with his tournament total at 302. Schneider has earned a top-20 finish in all four MAC Championships as a Falcon. Schneider was named 2nd Team All-MAC.

John Powers also played the full 36 rounds in 2009-10 and averaged 75.36 in that span. For his career, Powers leaves BGSU with an average of 75.17 over 123 rounds.

Scott Blackburn played in two tournaments in 2009-10. In his six rounds, Blackburn averaged 78.83, the best average since his freshman year. His senior year action also brought his career average under 80, as Blackburn leaves BGSU after shooting 79.76 over 29 rounds.

Chad Walker completed nine rounds this season for an average of 78.78. Those results improved Walker's career average to a solid 79.13 over 30 rounds.

Their season is over, but their success cannot be stopped. The BGSU Women’s Basketball team had an excellent season, and excellent may or may not be an understatement. Not only was this season such an success, the four-year seniors experienced an 113-24 record, a post season WNIT and two NCAA Tournament appearances with the Falcons.

Saturday the team gathered on campus for their annual banquet where they recognized each player for a different award. And I don’t think the results will shock you…

Player of the Year went to Lauren Prochaska

Falcon Award went to Maggie Hennegan

Power Player of the Year went to Tara Breske

Playmaker of the Year went to Tracy Pontius

Impact Player of the Year went to Tamika Nurse

Most Improved Player went to Kelly Zuercher

Scholar-Athletes of the Year went to Laura Bugher & Jen Uhl

Prochaska has been named Player of the Year twice consecutively. She ended up averaging 17.9 points a game this last season, scoring a new school-record 609 points. Prochaska also set a single-season record with 92 three-point shots made. That is the second highest total in Mid-American Conference History. Prochaska was also named team captain for the 2010-2011 season next Fall.

Team captain Breske has held Power Player of the Year for three years in a row. Ending her career with 916 points, 561 rebounds and 104 blocked shots Breske was an all-around player for the Falcons.

Nurse, as a new addition to the team a year ago, started all 34 games this past season and led the team in assists. Nurse also came in third on scoring for the orange and brown.

Bowling Green Athletics is asking students and alumni to start nominating former Falcon athletes’ jersey numbers. The jerseys will not be retired, just recognized. The criteria are very specific. The nominee must already be a member of the BGSU Athletics Hall of Fame and has been out of BGS for a minimum of 10 years. Among those requirements, the candidate must have outstanding athletics credentials, either by National award recognition, All-American status or a conference player-of-the-year status.

“Bowling Green has a long and distinguished athletic history,” Greg Christopher, Director of Athletics, said for the BGSU athletics website. “While we already recognize individuals who have excelled through the Athletics Hall of Fame, we wanted to take it another step forward. Retiring the jerseys of our legends is a great way to honor and recognize Falcon greats.”

I did my research and looked to see which former Falcons have already had their numbers recognized by the school. I found four that had their jerseys retired.

George McPhee- At BGSU McPhee was a four-year letter winner and won the Hobey Baker Award in 1982, which is given to the top collegiate hockey player. After being a Falcon, McPhee went on to play with the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils. Seven years in the NHL led McPhee to obtain his law degree from Rutgers and since 1997, McPhee is the General Manager of the Washington Capitals.

Nate Thurmond – At 6’10” Thurmond was recognized as one of the best defensive players to ever come through BGSU. After being named an NCAA Basketball All-American, Thurmond went on to have a 14-year career in the NBA after being drafted to the San Francisco Warriors. His number #42 was retired by BGSU, the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Things are looking up for the BGSU Hockey team as they just acquired a new head coach… and he came from one of the best hockey programs around; Miami University.Chris Bergeron was named BGSU’s seventh head coach of Hockey on Sunday April 12, 2010.Bergeron comes from a ten year assistant coaching job at Miami.

Bergeron is just in time for the Bring Back the Glory Campaign. This campaign is set up to do just what it says; bring back the glory of hockey to BGSU. For all students that attend BGSU, it is known that hockey has such a rich tradition here, but with a losing team the tradition has been fading.

The campaign is raising money to upgrade the facilities, add more scholarships and put more money into the faculty. An estimated $4 million is going into the ice arena alone to upgrade the compressors, chillers and infrastructure.

Bergeron made a comment to the BGSU’s athletic director stating, “I’m very excited to be a part of putting Bowling Green back where it belongs in the hockey world. My family and I are looking forward to becoming part of the Bowling Green community. What excites me the most, though, is seeing how hungry everyone is to make Bowling Green hockey successful again -- from Dr. Cartwright to Greg Christopher to everyone I talked to during the interview process.”

It’s good to see that he understands the Bowling Green fans are literally hungry for a decent hockey team. My only hope is that he can keep the rich tradition alive for more seasons to come.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

I know he didn’t play here… nor is he liked here (at least by me and all of Cleveland) I really, really want to comment on the creep named Big Ben. This is relevant because he’s from around here, Findlay to be specific. And I want to throw out on the table, from the people that knew him in high school, let’s just say he was not their favorite person.

First and foremost, dude’s a creep. He let his position go straight to his head and everyone can totally tell. If you haven’t heard (because you’re living in a box or something) Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexually assaulting a college female in Georgia. This is not the first time these sorts of accusations have arrived, and I think that should tell us something.

It has recently been confirmed that Roethlisberger will not be criminally charged with anything having to do with the allegations, which is bull. But the NFL commissioner isn’t going to let him off that easy. Tuesday morning Large Ben was in the comish’s office discussing the situation and whether or not there will be a punishment on behalf of the NFL.

Further than that, if the commissioner doesn’t discipline Ben, the Steelers still have the right to. According to those in Findlay and Pittsburg, Roethlisberger’s stuff is just sitting on the shelves. A lot of people are disappointed in him and want to let him know that he really needs to get his stuff together.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

I had the chance to get out and talk with a few of the guys from the Motorsports club on Tuesday. I intern at Fox Toledo and one of the sports guys was really interested in what this club got into. He asked me to come out and help him shoot a story on it, and it was very amusing.

These are not small, little kids getting into go-carts. These are almost fully grown men who build and rebuild go-carts to race competitively with. I wish I could have taken the video from Fox because you almost have to see it to believe it.

This is a club team, so they don’t receive any funding for their carts and all they can do is rely on sponsorship from those in the area. Certain cars have certain sponsors and amongst that list are Argo-Hytos, Lifeformations and South Side 6.

The mission statement of this club is “to develop and promote clean and renewable energy technologies in a motorsports setting” and the main goals are to “bring motorsports competition to the BGSU, develop, implement, and showcase clean energy systems and encourage fun, safe, and competitive competition.”

From what I gathered, this team has nine cars that are running and put into competition. They have an advisor, Anthony Palumbo and a co-ed team. They kept asking me to join because they need more girls!

Sports

Yours Truly

I'm a student at Bowling Green State University. Majoring in Broadcast Journalism, I'm very interested in sports... especially the ones here on campus. Last year I held the position as Sports Director at our local news station on campus, BG24.